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Wednesday, December 19, 2018

Hackers are not main cause of health data breaches

Lisa RapaportReuters News
Originally posted November 19, 2018

Most health information data breaches in the U.S. in recent years haven’t been the work of hackers but instead have been due to mistakes or security lapses inside healthcare organizations, a new study suggests.

Most health information data breaches in the U.S. in recent years haven’t been the work of hackers but instead have been due to mistakes or security lapses inside healthcare organizations, a new study suggests.

Another 25 percent of cases involved employee errors like mailing or emailing records to the wrong person, sending unencrypted data, taking records home or forwarding data to personal accounts or devices.

“More than half of breaches were triggered by internal negligence and thus are to some extent preventable,” said study coauthor Ge Bai of the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School in Washington, D.C.